


Death Doesn’t Always Mean Goodbye

by LaughableLament



Series: Comment Ficlets [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3850507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughableLament/pseuds/LaughableLament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights, like tonight, John's TV picks up his boys. (Spoilery if you haven't watched Seasons 9/10.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Doesn’t Always Mean Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



> Written for this prompt:
> 
> Supernatural: John Winchester, Love Without End, Amen by George Strait
> 
> Let me tell you a secret about a father's love  
> A secret that my daddy said was just between us  
> He said daddies don't just love their children every now and then  
> It's a love without end, amen

John watches.

He’s not supposed to -- not supposed to be able to -- but he’s owed a favor or fifty, he guesses. ’Cause sometimes, when he moves the rabbit ears on the old TV he falls asleep in front of every night, the screen doesn’t fill up with _Dallas_ or _Newhart_ or _Magnum, P.I._ Instead it shows him grainy shots of his boys, still saving people, hunting things, still walking the path he set them on in his grief and his rage and his lonely pain.

Sometimes he yells at the screen, the way he did back when he followed the Cubs. Sometimes he weeps. But mostly, he swells with pride.

And now there’s this Mark, this curse that scars his firstborn’s body and soul. Dean learned it from him, he knows. Regrets. Blind and drowning in his own revenge he made his son a sacrifice, sure as Abraham held a blade to Isaac’s breast. If only he’d had an angel to stay his hand.

Not that he’d do it all differently. He’s glad his boys have the guts and skills to survive in a world that’s all teeth and claws under the shiny surface. But he never meant for it to go like this, for Dean to pigeonhole himself. A grunt. A blunt instrument. Worthless. Expendable.

His precious boy, looking up at him with Mary’s eyes and Mary’s smile and it was barbed wire dragged through his chest until Dean learned to cast his eyes down and say, “Yes sir.” Learned his job, learned his place, learned he’d never be good enough. That’s on John.

He wants one more day. Wants to take the Mark for himself and tell his sons they’ve done good. And then go back to Hell where he belongs, his hundred and twenty years a blue light special for the damage he’s done.

Mary comes down the stairs. She’s not real, no more than his beat-up recliner and never-ending final season of _Taxi_. She perches on his chair arm, runs her fingers through his hair. He’s usually asleep by now.

“How are the boys?” he asks because it makes her smile.

“They’re perfect,” she says, same as always. “Sammy pulled himself up and Dean counted to ten without help.” She takes his hand. “Come to bed.”

He does. They make love, even though it feels like cheating. Mary, his Mary, is up here somewhere. He stays awake and when he hears her softly snoring, he slips back down the stairs. Flips on the TV.

His boys are gone. A rainbow test pattern fills the screen no matter where he points the rabbit ears.

He shambles to the kitchen, pulls a beer from the fridge. Tries to enjoy this, his Heaven, his perfect memory.

John prays.


End file.
